Shoulder pain with pushups..

[wannabejarhead]

I've been doing close to 300 pushups everyday give or take 50 pushups. I'm starting to experience pain in my shoulder and slightly in my upper back. I really don't want to injure myself because then I'll have to start back at square one as far as muscle goes. At the same time though, I want to continue because I'm now back in the routine I had at military school, doing pushups throughout the day, and the results are really impressive.

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Makethisworkout]

Hi

much military training is for the most part good but they often injure shoulders - generally with push ups the main thing to look out for is are your hands turned inward? (this reduces the space your rotator needs to move) - if not, you would assume the pain is the result of sheer weight of numbers...300 a day is a hell of a lot. are you doing any other exercises? notorious shoulder bashers are: upright rows, behind the neck push or pull, lifting barbells up and off the shoulders, preachers curls, tricep dips especially but all dips are potentially damaging

Kind Regs

Jon Robinson
BSc (Hons) Exercise Physiologist

 

[dswithers]

If you are really doing 300 push ups every day, 7 days a week, and nothing else you are likely suffering from:
1. overuse injury - your body needs time to rest and recover from exercise. I would highly recommend only doing 300 push ups maybe 3 times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday). As a general rule of thumb you should allow 48 hours rest between exercises that tax the same joint or muscle and an extra day occasionally.
2. imbalance between the pushing and pulling muscles - you need to balance the push ups, which work predominately the chest and triceps, with an exercise for the opposing muscles of the upper back and biceps, like pull ups or rows.